Keep Calm and Hack On! #GoInnovate 2014

Hopefuls from all over Malaysia massed together for an exciting challenge set by Astro - to build a radio streaming demo. The demo product was meant to redefine the way we watch, read, listen and play with content in two unique hacks to be completed within a 48 hour deadline. Astro offered substantial rewards to those whose ideas that came out on top!

Day 0: Demo - Friday evening

Attendees ranged from junior developers to start-up teams, so long as you’re 18 years old, you can take part!

To begin the Hackathon, entrants were fully briefed and given access to the APIs of both 7digital and music metadata company, Gracenote.

7digital’s lead API developer, Marco Bettiolo, flew in to act as Tech Support for the hackathon.

This photo shows Marco presenting a demo of a radio style streaming service he had previously built.

Day 1: Get Building!

According to the brief, hackers had to choose one of two innovative challenges:

1 - Product Challenge - To create a platform, or product that could redefine media consumption.

The build could be an app or web-based and they let the competitors define the platform.

They feverishly worked into the night, honing their development skills, whilst nibbling on pizza when they had chance.

Day 2: Pitching sessions - Sunday afternoon

Sunday evening drew the long competition to a close.

Well deserved drinks and cakes were on the menu, to celebrate all the hard work that these talented techies went through this weekend!

It’s the taking part that counts, right?

Goinnovates’ 2014 Hackathon encourages skilled people from all over Malaysia to get involved, learn from one another and share experiences, so taking part does count! A 48-hour hack event however, wouldn't be complete without some prizes now, would it?!

A panel of judges picked the most creative ideas and offered several cash prizes with a sum of RM 50,000 (£9,500)! There was one final winner and 1st and 2nd runner-up.

Today marks the beginning of the Technical Academy Tour as Academy Coordinator, Miles Pool, VP Technology, Paul Shannon and later, former apprentice, Mia Filisch head out across the UK to talk about our Technical Academy.

Continuous learning has always been part of the culture at 7digital and the Technical Academy allowed us to focus those ideas and start hiring apprentices. Changing the team entry requirements and providing a defined period of training allowed us to attract people from more diverse backgrounds and has increased the proportion of female developers in our team; it’s also strengthened the culture of learning and knowledge sharing at every level.

Since I started at 7digital I’ve loved our belief in continuous improvement. Throughout our history as a company we have had a number of influential women working in various parts of organisation yet I knew there was more we could do to improve the diversity of our tech team.

Here at 7digital, we see the relationship between the customer and the developer as one of the most important aspects of software development. We treat software development as more of a craft than an engineering discipline. Craftsmen back in the day would have constant communication with their customers, receiving regular visits from their customer to discuss progress and alterations as the item takes shape.

Over the last twenty years, the agile software movement and extreme programming in particular has championed this with its short iterations, customer showcases and active customer participation in the creation of features.

7digital software developer Mia Filisch attended the October 28th Velocity conference in Amsterdam. She was kind enough to share her account of the core takeaways here with us. She found that the core recurring theme around security was enough to inspire some internal knowledge sharing sessions she has already started scheming on. The diversity of insights led to a productive and informative conference. See below for her notes.